The recurring subject of custom videos
Posted: 31 Jul 2018, 08:54I thought I would address an issue that crops up fairly frequently.
Even though it has now been years since I agreed to do customs, I still get asked about this at regular intervals. When I reply to e-mails stating that I don’t do them, I am sometimes asked why. Given that most other producers out their claim that they welcome customs (less sincere than you might think), I stopped because of several key factors. In order of irksomeness, these are:
1) Most Customs Make No Sense
They are designed by the author to hit all the fetish points he really likes, and if it’s a scenario driven concept (which requests mostly are), the story line ends up getting lost in all the bizarre details. So what, you may argue. A custom is surely designed to present a buyer with all the content he likes. Here are the main issues: and model availability, and willingness for them all to do all the things the buyer wants. It’s a rare alignment of planets. But, more than anything else, I think it's the lack of logic that annoys me the most, and I would enter such a project in a bad frame of mind.
2) The Availability of Models
A good example of the problem here is where a buyer wants three models, and he will pick his primary choices. He has no idea that one lives in Florida, one in Colorado and one in California. The logistics in bringing these girls here to work on the same day are a nightmare - they all have busy schedules. If they are not planning to travel across country for themselves (and such tours would never coincide for all three anyway), they need travel expenses covered, including flight, hotel and rental car. They also don’t want to come all that way for a single day of work; at minimum they want two days to make the trip worthwhile for them. After all, I am asking them to spend almost a week away from home. The cost of this shoot is now between $6,000 and $8,000, depending on travel costs. This means I would have to advertise for other customs with these three models, and probably get a range of highly detailed and very time consuming things to do.
Bizarre elements in clips can often impede sales, so I’d have to cover all the cost of the shoot up front to make sure I don’t make a loss. Very hard to do. I used to chance it with big shoots and finance a lot of it myself. With those I at least had total control over the content and it would usually pay off. Sales were so much better before piracy killed off some of the market.
I digress. As soon as he buyer is presented with costs like these, he balks. He thought he was going to get his mega-production custom for about $600. He complains and tell me how such-and-such a producer will do it for must less than that. This begs the question, why not go to him then? This is when the effort to pick alternative models begins. He asks who is available living close enough to drive to a shoot. I give him a list of names. He doesn’t like most of them, and some won’t do all the stuff he wants. He’s getting pissy by this time. Even if we can agree on the line up of models, how long will it take to get them all available on the same day? If one is very lucky, weeks; more likely, months. He doesn’t like having to wait, especially if he has to pay a lot for it. And what if, in the end, one of the girls can’t make it? Who would be a good alternative? Are they available for the select date? Custom set ups require a lot of back and forth, with the buyer and with the models, using up colossal amounts of my time.
3) Over-Long Scripts
Another problem is that the scripts are invariably too long; too detailed. I’ve been sent some which are 40 pages long and which would take at least two days to film, never mind taking on other customs to help pay for this venture. One then has to then spend hours working with the buyer to try to shorten the script, but he, naturally, doesn’t want to sacrifice any of his fantasy. Just imagine how long the finished product would be. I have done a few bondage customs for buyers willing to spend $3,000 upward to get what they want, and the end result is nearly two hours long. In HD, that’s a file of between 4 and 5 GB. It’s untenable for downloading.
4) Unreasonable Requests
I had one guy ask for a single model custom. Sounds okay so far. The problems kicked off almost immediately though. He wanted to girl to pee three times in his custom, and he wanted her to drink about a gallon of water (or other liquids) on camera to prove that she really consumed that much. Pee three times? This is an all-day project. He also wanted it more graphic that his preferred model was willing to do. He didn’t want any one else but finally had to agree to a change. He then didn’t want to pay for the entire shoot. His custom was going to prevent me filming any other content, and he thought that was not a problem. Here’s the most unreasonable part: In one scene, he wanted her to wear a short black skirt and to have the pee visible on the front? Visible on black? For one thing, pee almost never touches short skirts; it emerges close to the hem line of the skirt and usually travels down the inner thigh. Many is the time a skirt has emerged completely dry. I mentioned this fact, and was informed by the buyer that he had seen this on other sites, so why couldn’t I film it? I pondered this for a while, trying to work out how this could have happened. Ultimately, I arrived at only one conclusion. This effect could only be achieved if the peeing scene was faked. A tube running down the model’s back and into her panties would tent to point forward. If the water pressure were great enough, and it probably would be to simulate serious desperation, the water would probably jet forward onto the front of the skirt. I tried this out with one of the models, and sure enough, that’s precisely what happened. When I pointed this out to the buyer, he got upset and cancelled the custom.
Because these days, in addition to pee content, I film for bondage, forced stripping, strip tease and handcuffs websites, I don't really have the time to entertain customs at all. I stopped the bondage ones last year for similar reasons to those cited above (too much detail, overlong stories, bondage ties that would hurt the model, impossible locations, and so on). I did offer forced stripping customs at the beginning of this year, thinking these at least would be uncomplicated, but how wrong can you be. Most of the requests were more to do with BDSM than just being forced to strip. It was bizarre, so I pulled this offer too. Forced stripping videos sell just fine, so why could I not hear from buyers who just wanted that? No. It had to get weird. It's much easier to just go my own way.
I’ll post some more behind the scenes information and rants in the near future. If there is any thing you would like to comment on about the above subject, please feel free to do so.
Even though it has now been years since I agreed to do customs, I still get asked about this at regular intervals. When I reply to e-mails stating that I don’t do them, I am sometimes asked why. Given that most other producers out their claim that they welcome customs (less sincere than you might think), I stopped because of several key factors. In order of irksomeness, these are:
1) Most Customs Make No Sense
They are designed by the author to hit all the fetish points he really likes, and if it’s a scenario driven concept (which requests mostly are), the story line ends up getting lost in all the bizarre details. So what, you may argue. A custom is surely designed to present a buyer with all the content he likes. Here are the main issues: and model availability, and willingness for them all to do all the things the buyer wants. It’s a rare alignment of planets. But, more than anything else, I think it's the lack of logic that annoys me the most, and I would enter such a project in a bad frame of mind.
2) The Availability of Models
A good example of the problem here is where a buyer wants three models, and he will pick his primary choices. He has no idea that one lives in Florida, one in Colorado and one in California. The logistics in bringing these girls here to work on the same day are a nightmare - they all have busy schedules. If they are not planning to travel across country for themselves (and such tours would never coincide for all three anyway), they need travel expenses covered, including flight, hotel and rental car. They also don’t want to come all that way for a single day of work; at minimum they want two days to make the trip worthwhile for them. After all, I am asking them to spend almost a week away from home. The cost of this shoot is now between $6,000 and $8,000, depending on travel costs. This means I would have to advertise for other customs with these three models, and probably get a range of highly detailed and very time consuming things to do.
Bizarre elements in clips can often impede sales, so I’d have to cover all the cost of the shoot up front to make sure I don’t make a loss. Very hard to do. I used to chance it with big shoots and finance a lot of it myself. With those I at least had total control over the content and it would usually pay off. Sales were so much better before piracy killed off some of the market.
I digress. As soon as he buyer is presented with costs like these, he balks. He thought he was going to get his mega-production custom for about $600. He complains and tell me how such-and-such a producer will do it for must less than that. This begs the question, why not go to him then? This is when the effort to pick alternative models begins. He asks who is available living close enough to drive to a shoot. I give him a list of names. He doesn’t like most of them, and some won’t do all the stuff he wants. He’s getting pissy by this time. Even if we can agree on the line up of models, how long will it take to get them all available on the same day? If one is very lucky, weeks; more likely, months. He doesn’t like having to wait, especially if he has to pay a lot for it. And what if, in the end, one of the girls can’t make it? Who would be a good alternative? Are they available for the select date? Custom set ups require a lot of back and forth, with the buyer and with the models, using up colossal amounts of my time.
3) Over-Long Scripts
Another problem is that the scripts are invariably too long; too detailed. I’ve been sent some which are 40 pages long and which would take at least two days to film, never mind taking on other customs to help pay for this venture. One then has to then spend hours working with the buyer to try to shorten the script, but he, naturally, doesn’t want to sacrifice any of his fantasy. Just imagine how long the finished product would be. I have done a few bondage customs for buyers willing to spend $3,000 upward to get what they want, and the end result is nearly two hours long. In HD, that’s a file of between 4 and 5 GB. It’s untenable for downloading.
4) Unreasonable Requests
I had one guy ask for a single model custom. Sounds okay so far. The problems kicked off almost immediately though. He wanted to girl to pee three times in his custom, and he wanted her to drink about a gallon of water (or other liquids) on camera to prove that she really consumed that much. Pee three times? This is an all-day project. He also wanted it more graphic that his preferred model was willing to do. He didn’t want any one else but finally had to agree to a change. He then didn’t want to pay for the entire shoot. His custom was going to prevent me filming any other content, and he thought that was not a problem. Here’s the most unreasonable part: In one scene, he wanted her to wear a short black skirt and to have the pee visible on the front? Visible on black? For one thing, pee almost never touches short skirts; it emerges close to the hem line of the skirt and usually travels down the inner thigh. Many is the time a skirt has emerged completely dry. I mentioned this fact, and was informed by the buyer that he had seen this on other sites, so why couldn’t I film it? I pondered this for a while, trying to work out how this could have happened. Ultimately, I arrived at only one conclusion. This effect could only be achieved if the peeing scene was faked. A tube running down the model’s back and into her panties would tent to point forward. If the water pressure were great enough, and it probably would be to simulate serious desperation, the water would probably jet forward onto the front of the skirt. I tried this out with one of the models, and sure enough, that’s precisely what happened. When I pointed this out to the buyer, he got upset and cancelled the custom.
Because these days, in addition to pee content, I film for bondage, forced stripping, strip tease and handcuffs websites, I don't really have the time to entertain customs at all. I stopped the bondage ones last year for similar reasons to those cited above (too much detail, overlong stories, bondage ties that would hurt the model, impossible locations, and so on). I did offer forced stripping customs at the beginning of this year, thinking these at least would be uncomplicated, but how wrong can you be. Most of the requests were more to do with BDSM than just being forced to strip. It was bizarre, so I pulled this offer too. Forced stripping videos sell just fine, so why could I not hear from buyers who just wanted that? No. It had to get weird. It's much easier to just go my own way.
I’ll post some more behind the scenes information and rants in the near future. If there is any thing you would like to comment on about the above subject, please feel free to do so.